Lady Day, Many faces of Billie Holiday

The heartrending blues and jazz singer

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The intense and heartrending story of the greatest blues and jazz singer of all time: Billie Holiday.

Billie Holiday is a real legend, associating a grating voice and an intense original charisma. All of this with great elegance and subtle beauty. The documentary tells her story and explores the real Lady Day through the torments and chaos of her life.

In 1933 a producer at Columbia, John Hammond, discovered her at the age of 18 – she was born in 1915 – singing in a club in Harlem. He immediately had her do a recording session with a young clarinet player, Benny Goodman… From then on, she met Duke Ellington, Lester Young, Count Basie, Artie Shaw and Ben Webster but she also became acquainted with opium, cocaine and soon after heroin. Between time in prison for possession of drugs and Carnegie Hall where she topped the bill, Billie Holiday was on a roller coaster between downfall and glory. Her excesses soon caught up with her and she died at the age of 44.